Sim Card Failure No Sim with iPhone 4S Anyone Else?

9A406 did not improve the issue for me...woke up again this morning to a sim error message, forcing me to reset once again. I have to reset every morning and 2-3 times everyday to stay connected. When it works it works brilliantly but not having reliability in terms of connectivity is a major flaw! MTN SA

What do you mean with "no word from Cupertino?"

They're trying to fix the issue, the release of the new build is the proof.

What do they have to do more than this? A press conference to publicly admit they found a flaw in their product? Discuss with you any ideas the come up with? Recall each and every phone they sold??

Obviously they're trying to fix this without creating a mass commotion, every company would do that.

The place where they "talk" with customers is knowledge base.

They put up an update, trying to fix the issue. For some of us it's working; for some others it's not.

They'll keep on working on that and they may come up with another update or another firmware (5.0.2) or put the fix in iOS 5.1.

I don't know, but clearly they are NOT ignoring us.

Then again, I you need to be told every step they are taking to address the issue, maybe it's just your professional bias, being in software IT and everything. I assure you no company is likely to discuss and reveal the details of their under-the-hood work.

To Toothsaw...

You are wrong my friend. How hard was it to design 4S? All Apple had to to was to fix antenna issues from iPhone 4, place a new processor and new camera and yet thousands of us are now having this issue with No Service, Searching, SIM Failure and on and on...

So in my opinion Apple should apologize publicly to those of us with these issues. I paid a lot of money for this phone and I can't use it as a phone. I was lucky and found an old SIM that works great and now I have to take two phones with me every day so people can reach me at me old number and I can use iPhone 4S, sad, sad, sad.

Honesty has always been the best policy. If you're right, you're right but if you're wrong then you should let people know you're wrong.

Unfortunately, new build of 5.0.1 did not work for me. But there is change. Phone shows no service more frequently, authincantion timed out shows. If I install Austrian sim card from a1 in roaming, problem disappears.

Oh dear dear. Very sorry folks. I did say In my last posting. I restored my I4s. To the so called 5.0.1 build 9A406 software. And it worked for me. Well, guess what. Yes. No good whats so ever. After only a couple of hours of no problems. Back came . Invalid sim, no sim, no service. Well done Apple. Yet another cockup. Why don't you get your fingers out and Fix the flippin problem. Or bring out a proper update ie. (5.0.2). Mind you. Monday morning I'm asking for a refund. As this pile of expensive JUNK I have is being returned. I now reverted back to my Samsung S2. Apoliges, again friends. And I do hope you get a fix for your phones soonest.

Hello folks.

I've had the same issue with my iPhone 4S 32g. I've had 2 phones and 3 sim cards from Orange here in the UK and still no joy - invalid sim, invalid sim, invalid sim. It's been driving me mental to say the least......

Having spoken to Applecare this morning they suggested I swap it for yet another phone down at their Solihull store so, although fearing another wild goose chase, I agreed to humour them and headed off to the shop.

My appointment with genius A was overheard by genius B who informed me that the solution to this problem had been circulated late last night on some internal Apple mail or something. The issue is firmware and requires something other than a standard restore - something called a 'DFU' restore (I think that's what he called it anyway). This will be a complete restore of your iPhone so back up!!! Anyway here goes:

1. Plug in to iTunes and back up.

2. Hold down the power (top) button and the home (bottom) button together for approx 8 seconds.

3. Release the TOP BUTTON ONLY after 8 seconds. As iTunes begins to restore the phone you can release the bottom button.

4. The phone will go back to the factory settings. You can then restore from your save back up.

My firmware went from 1.013 to 1.014. However, my son has the same phone as me, on the same network and bought at the same time and he's had no SIM issues whatsoever - and his firmware is 1.013!! Work that one out!

Anyway it's all good at the moment........I just hope I haven't spoken too soon.

Hope this is of some assistance.

@Toothsaw:

It is quite simple and other vendors do it: Your product is having a problem and a large number of your customers are affected (proved by this discussion already).

So you post a message to your customers that you're aware of the issue and you are working on a resolution.

If you have a correction, another post to your customer with some idea what changed and what the customer can expect to get.

This is really simple and since Apple is able to send me marketing emails, they will be able to tell me that they are working on the issue and from time to time update me on their progress.

I am not interested in getting an update every hour - but I am convinced that this dicusssion here would have less than two (2!) pages if Apple has been proactive on this issue.

None of this happened hence I claim this "no word from Cupertino" - especially since I have a high priority bug report open with them (which they never updated since I sent them a number of crash dumps).

Stefan

P.S. Since updating to the new iOS 5.0.1 Build 9A406 w/ Modem Firmware 1.014 I get the SIM Error more often (4 times today).

P.P.S. I called into Vodafone and was told that I have to get a new SIM card which they will send out on Monday to fix this problem. How do they know? We will see next week...

same problem....... i have a iphone4s with an italian vodafone sim card. it works in Italy, but not in some countries outside Europe. Last week i was in Israel and my iphone doesn't work (No service) during all the trip. Vodafone try to help me, but was not useful....

I bought my iPhone from Apple online store Singapore few days back, and it had this No SIM or Invalid SIM problem from day - 1, and I would need to reset every now and then. In fact most of the time I would be able to stay connected, could get calls & SMSes, but had difficulties in making calls (even in good coverage areas) and sending SMS was impossible. What was most funny was the Internet connectivity remained active at all times.

So I was wondering if my iPhone hardware was a problem or SW, and did Google and found about the iOS5 update (iOS 5.0.1 build 9A406), so I immediately updated my phone. Thanks God with this new update my problem has resolved completely, and now its been 48 hours or so and since then my phone is working perfectly fine.

I had the very same issue on my iphone 4 when it first came out, kept getting this error message at least 6 times day. Looking back I was an idiot for putting up with it for nearly 2 weeks and it waas only coming onto a forum that suggested a genius bar that made me take it back. I got a replacement and have had no issues since and that will be 2 years next June. I am very very suprised the 4s is showing the same problems however not upgrading until the 5 comes out and even then will wait for the first in the queue to be the " beta buyers" as it were . I'm sure you will get sorted out as the customer service in my case was excellent !

The last fix didn't solved the problem...still turn off and on 8-9 times in a day..

why apple refused to release message to all clients

That this problem is known and fix will be release soon.

Uncertainty would hurt Apple's future business

After the update I got the problem also 4-5 times a day which made me try the factory reset described in a recent posting:

<QUOTE>

1. Plug in to iTunes and back up.

2. Hold down the power (top) button and the home (bottom) button together for approx 8 seconds.

3. Release the TOP BUTTON ONLY after 8 seconds. As iTunes begins to restore the phone you can release the bottom button.

4. The phone will go back to the factory settings. You can then restore from your save back up.

</QUOTE>

Did this yesterday afternoon and since then no SIM Error. I am still going to replace the SIM card this week but not having the problem for a couple of hours make me think that this reset did something good.

HTH

Stefan

Hi Stefan,

I've bought my new iPhone 4 S in November in Singapore, but we are based in Philippines; since I brought my new phone to philippines, and then the message "invalid sim" or "no service" were constantly showing up on display; we tried all the suggestions, and nothing could help; the last Sunday I read your message &amp; followed exactly what you wrote, IT WORKED! I got my service back, there's no more 'invalid sim' message! Hope that's constant!

The procedure what you suggested is automatically reinstalling the same version 5.0.1; so I presume Apple have already renewed the software 5.0.1 onto 5.0.1, just without informing!

Good luck everyone,

Oxana

A quick update on my earlier post.......

Having gone through the procedure that 'genius B' explained to me, I arrived home only to experience the same 'invalid sim' issue. Gutted.

So. Off I went to see another 'genius' at the Leicester Apple Store on Sunday (I've spent a good percentage of my weekend trying to sort this **** out!). She gave me a brand new phone. It's been 27 hours now and so far so good. I hope I'm not tempting fate again by posting this................

It appears that there's no one solution to our problem. I would think there are a few dodgy batches of phones knocking around that require different solutions....just my thoughts on the matter.

If genius B's DFU restore has helped you then fantastic! If not, ask for another phone. It seems the only way around it from what I can see. This is my 3rd phone in less than 2 months - let's hope it's 3rd time lucky. Because if it isn't.....bye bye Apple, hello Blackberry.

Best of luck folks.

New build does not help for everyone. I did recovery using DFU mode 3 times and phone still nor working with my local carrier while working with Austrian sim card in roaming. Problem exists. I hope that all guys who solved problem in home network will not go traveling to network where iPhone will not work like it happened with my colleague.